Campus Life

Campus Life

It’s hard to deny–being on campus feels good. I’ve heard late-night hip hop blasting from high, Virginia brick buildings. I’ve attended a chamber music concert. I’ve seen a keg shuffled in the side door of a dormitory (by none other than one of my students). I saw a visiting dance company perform. I walked the campus grounds and explored its boundaries with a poet-faculty friend who took me down to the railroad tracks and the James River. I’ve met security guards who are already familiar with my evening writing spot (4th flour, Smith Hall, lodged between the sofa and the opposing chairs, perched on two upholstered pillows).

What is it about a small college that feels like opportunity? As though you could start your day with one list of things to do, and end up experiencing something entirely different? And that that’s the way it should probably be? As gifted and delightful as the high school seniors I taught at Interlochen Center for the Arts were, just six months of maturity is not the only difference I notice between those talented teens and these college-geared young minds. High school seniors know everything. It is their job to do this and it is also their job to criticise the people that helped build them up. Their teachers love them, even through this. College freshman, on the other hand, are chomping at the bit for continued approval and blessings on their futures. They might still be plenty confident, but they’ve also signed on for something bigger that will take at least four years. That’s probably longer than most marriages last these days. In other words: they’re committed…and that committment, paired with a totally supportive learning environment, lends itself to something unforgettable. Do I sound nostalgic? All week I’ve been remembering things from life at Whitman College that I thought had long since fled my memory…

Here at Randolph, there are little nooks and corners between buildings that invite quiet pondering. Or, in warmer weather, perhaps some picnics. The campus post office is quaint and, thanks to the serious College honor system, no one locks their boxes. Or their doors. Or their offices. Or their gym lockers. It’s an open, safe, honest place. And even stealing a fork from the dining hall and using it back in your dorm room is subject to review by the Judiciary Committee. Some might call that strict. I call it ingenious. It’s lovely walking around with so many open doors, so many welcoming voices, so many possibilities…

This fellow helped start the school. Good to see he’s not forgotten…

…In such a place, a writer might even find a way to believe in her novel again. A writer might tend the quiet stirring of those unwritten pages and consider that yes, someday, even they will be filled. And revised. And edited. And rewritten. And revised again. And with any luck, eventually, published.